Editor's note: Coarse-grained reconfigurable platforms are good for parallel data-intensive applications but inefficient for sequential control-dominated code. This article (selected from the best of the SBCCI 2003 papers) explores the integration of the general-purpose, Sparc-compliant Leon processor with the Extreme Processing Platform reconfigurable data path. The integration's goal is to optimize the execution of complex multimedia applications such as MPEG-4.<div>--<em>Fadi J. Kurdahi, University of California, Irvine</em></div>